Tornadoes, Photography, & The Platemen Attack!

The Tornado In Goldsby, OK
     So as I said in my last little mini-post the other day I have be pretty blog-neglectful recently.  If you are a follower you know my wife & I own a photography studio, the start of wedding season has come! I don't know how you do it but I have 3 boys so with Jayden's Aspergers & lord knows what my 5 year old has going on, he is going in to be evaluated in June for Autism, ADD, Anxiety, who knows whats up but we have to find out, a teen aged babysitter is pretty much out of the question. If we could even find a teen that 1. would even consider it or 2. I trusted with my kids (I'm pretty crazy overprotective.)  then that would MAYBE be an option but alas no. That is the main reason we still live in our home town of Shawnee Oklahoma, both of our families live here so we have a lot of babysitters when we need to go do photo shoots together or weddings. If at all possible we split up as to not have to drop them off, not because I'm an awesome dad but mainly because grandma's spoil them &, as I'm sure you know, when you spoil an ASD kid it's not just spoiled it 3 days trying to get back on track. Between all the weddings we have & the crazy tornadoes we had come through we have been busy. If you care to take a peek at our wedding photos or if you are getting married & want some info (have camera will travel) click here for a sneak peek on our photography blog. Also if you get board check out the article I wrote of Yahoo! News about being on shift with the ambulance service & getting stuck in the ambulance trying to out run the tornadoes.


     So on to the awesomeness that is my life! First we get the results of Jayden's testing at school for the IEP that says in most subjects he is at a 7th to 8th grade level, good good news on dad's end since I was pretty sick of hearing the other second graders tell me how 'Jayden is kinda crazy sometimes' or 'Jayden don't be strange." I know I'm a bad person but I just wanted to be like 'Hey sport! Why don't you go chase cars!' I know, I know! I'm horrible but MAN do I hate the fact that he doesn't fit it sometimes. Anyway after getting the results back I'm doin' the happy dance, doin' the my kid is smarter than you so go ahead and make a little fun, your kid will be working for him in a few years anyway! Okay, I'll stop being an a#*. I can't help it. Second bit of awesomeness is we got a letting saying that Jayden is invited to be in the Gifted & Talented class next year! He talks so much already about how he wants to go to college & do all these things, it really excites me! 


*ON A SIDE NOTE* -->Beware! The Plate-Men!<--
    
    
     I had the privilege of being a helper on Jayden's class field trip to the Oklahoma Science Museum. Why did no one tell me that Dad's don't go on these thing!?! I'm sitting in the class room & mom after mom after mom walk in, teacher looks at me and says 'I'm so happy you came! Now the bathroom situation will be so much easier!' NICE! When we did get to the Museum in Oklahoma City (about 40 minutes away) there were like 50 school buses there, I had to park across the street at a horse racing track! You know I looked awesome running to the Museum like I just ducked into the track to play the ponies a little before I phoned in this whole 2nd grade field trip thing. Stroll up to the buses parked outside when the teacher walks up to me and says 'We just got a call from the school, all the kids lunches are still sitting in the hall!' Q Home Simpson moment D'oh! Apparently our bus driver who looked like he was pushing 13 years old & had his ear buds in probably rockin' out to some Wayne Newton or what ever kids are listening to these days was to busy to load em' up before we rolled out. So after some debate on what to do I decided to jump in the car & run back. 40 min drive in 24 minute flat! Not safe but hey, I drive an ambulance! Not sure if that would fly if I got pulled over, 'No worries officer I'm a medic headed to a 2nd grade field trip, stand aside.' After getting back just in time for lunch we had a great time. Spaceships, airplanes, science experiments, & dinosaur bones we did it all!
    

     I am working on a couple of ebooks. Sooo close to being done with them! I thought I would be putting them up with this blog but alas no. Possably tomorrow. Just a few 4-5 page pdf books about everything from everyday strategies for parents with asperger's kids to a parents guide to photographing autistic kids. I'm also working on one that gives some helpful stuff Samantha & I have learned about dealing with her being a step-parent of an ASD kid so that should be cool to. If YOU have any ideas that you would like to see a little in depth article on you should drop me a line at thomas@hibbenphotography.com   As always, thanks for reading & don't forget to look me up on Facebook & Twitter.

2 comments:

  1. I have an 8 year-old Aspie, as well, and can totally relate to the babysitter thing. It ALWAYS takes 3 days to get back on track from a sleep-over with Grandma! The older he gets, the easier it is. For my barfly husband and I, we were some serious homebodies for awhile, which was tough. One time my sister asked me why we just couldn't ask our teenage neighbor to babysit. Glad to know I'm not the only one who has trouble with that!

    Thanks for the great blog,
    Brenna

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  2. I use au pairs a nanny from a different country that lives with you and they work up to 45 hours a week and you get to schedule the time evening weekends ( have to have one weekend off a month). They have ones with experience in special needs or willing to take it on. I have two boys and a girl and my oldest 7 has ADHD and "something else" hope to get better dx in July. We get male au pairs and they never complian about the hard work and enjoy and love how different Gabe can be and problem solve when we are having issues and rejoice with us when we accomplish things and he acheived things. We don't have family so this is the only way we get date night. I use cultural care and with male au pairs less drama they just do their job, are like a big brother, and have great experience with kids. It's never easy but thanks for the blog makes me feel less alone in all of this

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